It all started with a vending machine. A few years ago, residents of Mount Rubidoux Manor in Riverside, Calif., decided to recycle more of the soda cans sold in their community's laundry room. After all, the profits from the vending machine went to the resident council. Why not recoup the deposits California requires on cans?

Kathy Cusick loves Beethoven but has never been crazy about his Third Symphony, the Eroica. She found more meaning in the piece when she learned what was happening in the composerís life when he wrote it.

Surrounded by the stunning lake and mountain scenery of the Sierras, those who live in the Lake Tahoe area are particularly attuned to the environment. When ABHOW leaders planned the Kelly Ridge community in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., they took special care to ensure that the campus would complement its surroundings and integrate energy-conserving features.

Barbara Squire, a resident at The Terraces of Los Gatos, was one of the more than 300 surviving members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots ñ or WASPs ñ honored with the Congressional Gold Medal on March 10.

Eleanor Childers was traveling as a courier, carrying classified information about the Pan-American Highway. World War II was under way, and Childers was working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Costa Rica to build an alternative transportation route in case the Panama Canal was attacked.